Posts Tagged: dogs

Last night walking my dogs I had to stop and clean up after one of them, and doing this, because of the awkward circs, I let go of their leashes a moment because NORMALLY they’re good dogs and stay close by me and it’s no problem. But it was a dark street on a dark night, and the dogs do startle, and suddenly a guy came looming up out of the darkness, clop clop clop clop running straight at us–just a jogger, shirtless, booking along pretty fast. The startled dogs launched after the guy, barking, dragging their leashes as they chased him, our small dogs loudly shouting in growf-rowf protest at him. He was quite visibly speeding up. I was soon running after them, yelling “Iggy, Daisy, get back here, stop that!” Waving my bag of dog poop as I went. I also yelled at the jogger: “They don’t really bite! They’re just startled! Sorry!”

At last they obeyed and the guy vanished into the night. I lectured the dogs. They were like, “But we were startled and…and…he was…dangerous or…or something…”

I sometimes forget they’re little animals, descended from wild creatures, never going to be perfectly tame. I look around at the world and I remember that we’re animals too, and we’re never going to be perfectly tame. And we startle, and react and launch ourselves barking and growfing and snapping, dragging our leashes…

Another thing that bothers me, is when I’m out walking my dogs and note the large numbers of small dogs kept in garages all day, and often at night, regardless of the weather; not much better (sometimes worse), when a dog is left endlessly in the back yard. They yip and whine piteously.

Small dogs are bred to be companions to people. All dogs are pack animals and need to be around their pack, other dogs or people. They feel anguish, over this.

The National Convention of Dogs (humans not allowed to attend) have nominated our dogs for an award. They are short listed.

They had preliminary nominations in “most demanding of attention”, “quickest food scavengers” & “embarrassing your owners by barking furiously at people”. But it looks like they’re going to win for “most underfoot”. (They’re shoe-ins for that one.)